French A1 Essentials Study Guide: 260 Flashcards, 45 Repeats and the Fixes That Matter

Deck CA4776 — French Vocabulary A1: Essentials has 260 cards, English front, French back. It comes from the same subtitle frequency generator as the A2 and B1 decks. That means de, je, est, pas, le, que lead the list, and the cards are all function words, verb forms and conversation fillers. There is no thematic vocabulary. For understanding spoken French in the first months, that is the right set of words. But the deck has a structural quirk you should deal with first.

Eight cards from the deck

The deck repeats itself: study cards 1-96, then 143-260

Cards 97-142 rerun cards 1-96 with slightly different wording: of/from → de (1 and 97), he/it → il (14 and 103), so/then → alors (84 and 140), have → ont (91 and 142), and about 45 more. Suspend that whole block. Only dans (115) and moi (124) are new there. After those two, the real deck continues at card 143 with aussi, avoir, vraiment, voir, même, maintenant.

Three fixes

• Fragments, not words. c', j', l', d', qu', n', m', t', s', quelqu' each get their own card. Merge them into one elision card: je → j'ai, le → l'homme, que → qu'il. Three backs are pieces of longer expressions. Write d'accord for accord, parce que for parce, and avoir besoin de for besoin. Also il faut (not just faut), M. = Monsieur, and delete card 225 ca: it's ça with the cedilla lost.
• Verbs scattered across 40 cards. suis, es, est, êtes, sont (sommes is missing) and ai, as, a, avons, avez, ont show up one at a time, mixed with vais / vas / va / allez, sais, veux, peux, dois, fais. Build three table cards for être, avoir and aller, plus one card for the "I" forms of the modals (je sais, je veux, je peux, je dois).
• No genders. Nouns come without their article. Add it to every back: la chose, la vie, le monde, la personne, le père, la mère, l'homme (m), la femme, la maison, le jour, la nuit, le soir, l'argent (m), la raison, le temps, la fois.

Two traps the deck hides

• Two words for "time": le temps is duration or weather; la fois is an occurrence (une fois, deux fois). Put them on one contrast card.
• Personne means "a person" (card 185), but ne… personne means "nobody". Since ne (17) and rien (75) are already in the deck, add a card for je ne vois personne.

What you'll know after the ~215 unique cards

Articles (le, la, les, un, une, des, du, au, aux), subject and object pronouns (je, tu, il, elle, on, nous, vous, ils, me, te, se, moi, toi, lui, leur), possessives (mon, ma, mes, ton, ta, tes, son, ses, notre, votre, nos, vos), question words (qui, quoi, où, quand, comment, pourquoi, quel), negation (ne, pas, rien, jamais), and the conversation glue alors, donc, voilà, ouais, salut, bonjour, merci, désolé, peut-être.

Next steps

Continue with the A2 Everyday deck and the B1 Expanding deck. They come from the same generator, so the same fixes apply. Find CA4776 in the library at flip-it.app.